Being Beyond Binaries
This year has been fiery. Here in Australia literally to begin with and, to my mind, that's not really abated much over the last 11 months.
We're in a huge cycle of shift, change, and transformation. I don't think there's a single person who hasn't had something fundamental shaken up quite dramatically this year. And that, in itself, is pretty harrowing or humbling at the best of times.
Significantly 2020 has asked something more of us. It keeps asking us to pick sides. Everywhere I look, there are divides. Chasms are appearing in organisations, friendships, cities and countries. For those who strongly self-identify with/by the external world, picking sides is now vital. Sides can offer us a much-needed sense of certainty and connection as the world shakes. And we all need more of that.
But the spectrum of existence isn’t always easily distilled into one of two sides. In current terms, it’s possible to believe COVID-19 is real AND not want vaccines; it’s possible to have voted for Biden and not want him for President; it’s possible to have marched in a BLM event and still not full confront white privilege… You get the point, I hope….
Perhaps the nuance that is causing tension is the balance between wanting to be on the right side of history whilst also needing to generate our sense of centre and belonging from within as a sovereign being. We're creating new relationships and systems between self and other, inner and outer, energy and form.
There is no rule book, there are no leaders, and certainly no maps. The direction is down to us, in the little and the big ways we are and do each and every day.
It's a lot. Even with a regular practice, I'm feeling the drain of navigating endless self-excavations, constant recalibrating to shifting sands underfoot, and voicing new truths. If you've even remotely answered the call of this year, chances are, you too have become aware that our old ways of doing things are exhausting. We need to update our means of self-navigation and upgrade our ways of doing things.
In my humble opinion, the only way out is in. Now more than ever, we have to find ways to sit with ourselves, ALL of ourselves. We have to be able to provide our own moments of stillness and nurture our connection to the land we walk upon. We have to be able to feel our body and the signals it offers us and make space for our emotions to move through. We have to know what within us is driving our actions.
It's my prayer this final month of 2020 that we finally understand power not as force, nor position but as presence. Let's get really damn present with it all. We’re never going to ‘fix’ the outer world whilst we’re a stranger to our own hearts, minds and bodies.